39 
decree of the Homan Senate was called forth. Its occasion is 
thus related by Livy. A worthless Greek, a low minister of 
religion (sacrificulus) and a prognosticator of future events, 
came to Etruria, who introduced secret and nocturnal Bacchic 
rites, which, confined at first to a few, spread rapidly among 
both sexes, their meetings being originally separate, though, 
after a time, conjoint. The immoralities to which these 
nocturnal meetings gave rise are set forth by Livy, (xxxix 8.) 
and are such that the authorities of the State would have been 
fully justified, on this ground alone, in putting them down and 
punishing their authors. But there was more in them to 
excite alarm than their immorality. They were supposed to 
be connected with a secret conspiracy for the overthrow of the 
Government, that is of the aristocracy, represented by the 
Senate. Innovations in religion were, in the minds of both 
Greeks and Homans, closely connected with revolution in 
politics. Thucydides (vi. 27) remarks, in relating the 
mutilation of the Hermse at Athens, that it made a deeper 
impression on the public mind because it was supposed to be con¬ 
nected with a revolutionary plot. Where religious prejudice 
and political alarm combine, slight and worthless evidence 
passes for damning proof. We know what calumnies Christians 
have endured from heathens, heretics from the Church, Jews 
from Christians and Mahometans, Protestants from Homan 
Catholics, and Homan Catholics from Protestants. We 
cannot, therefore, accept implicitly all the charges against those 
concerned in the Bacchanalia. That their reunions were 
secret, nocturnal, and promiscuous, was a suificient reason for 
their suppression. That the political bias of the Senators and 
the panic of the Homan public may have led to the punishment 
of many innocent persons, and the exaggeration of the crimes of 
the Bacchanals, is, judging from analogy, very probable. 
The conspiracy, as it was termed, having been revealed, the 
parties alleged to be concerned in it executed or expelled, and 
many having fled from the city through conscious guilt, or fear 
of condemnation, the senate issued the decree of which a copy 
is before you. It does not prohibit all celebration of the 
Bacchic rites, for we have seen before that, if not an integral 
